Wildlife trust's plumbing fears over river pollution

The River Sowe near to Dorchester Way showing the tell-tale signs of white sewage fungus (s)

HOMES in Coventry are unknowingly polluting the city’s rivers, the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust has said.

It said it believed waste from some houses was still being pumped into rivers and brooks rather than sewers.

Recently there were huge build ups of sewage fungus found on the River Sowe and Canley Brook caused by the high nutrient levels found in raw sewage and detergents.

Houses built since 1920 are connected to two separate sewer systems: one for the surface water from driveways, roads or rain from roof, and one which takes toilet, washing machine, shower, dishwasher and sinks waste to treatment plants.

But it appears some built before then have not been replumbed.

Meetings are being planned in the new year in Canley, Wyken and Walsgrave to try to resolve the problems.

A trust spokesman saidquite often homeowners were not aware there was a misconnection on their property and assumed all water from their property was treated and cleaned.

“The good news is that checking for misconnections is a simple process that everyone can do, and if it turns out you do have a misconnection on your property the likelihood is that it will be a pretty simple task for a trained plumber to set right.”